# dragonflydb/dragonfly

A modern replacement for Redis and Memcached

Repository: https://github.com/dragonflydb/dragonfly
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/dragonfly
Homepage: https://www.dragonflydb.io/
Language: C++
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: memcached, multi-threading, redis, cpp, fibers, cache, database, in-memory, in-memory-database, key-value, keydb, message-broker, nosql, valkey, vector-search
Last push: 2026-08-26T19:30:59+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 96, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1726, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 27, "gap_med": 9, "n_releases_24m": 50}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 31043, forks 1234 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:56.560030+00:00)

## What it is
Dragonfly is a modern in-memory data store that is fully API-compatible with Redis and Memcached, built on a multi-threaded, shared-nothing, thread-per-core architecture. It delivers up to 25X higher throughput and better memory efficiency than Redis on a single instance, with no code changes required to adopt.

## Use cases
- replace redis with a faster drop-in compatible cache
- scale a caching layer to millions of QPS on one instance
- reduce infrastructure costs for redis or valkey workloads
- run a high-throughput in-memory key-value store
- use redis-compatible pub/sub as a message queue
- store vector embeddings with a redis-compatible API
- avoid redis cluster resharding complexity with vertical scaling

## When to choose
- you need Redis API compatibility with much higher throughput and lower tail latency
- your workload is bottlenecked by Redis's single-threaded architecture
- you want to scale a cache vertically on one large node instead of managing a cluster
- memory efficiency and lower infrastructure cost are priorities

## When to avoid
- you depend on Redis modules or ecosystem features Dragonfly does not implement
- you need strict single-threaded Redis semantics or persistence behavior identical to Redis
- your dataset is small and Redis performance is already sufficient
- you require an OSI-approved open-source license, as Dragonfly uses a non-standard license

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: active
- function: database, caching, message-queue, vector-database
- domain: databases, backend, self-hosted
- platform: self-hosted, cloud, cpp
- tags: in-memory-database, redis-compatible, memcached-compatible, key-value-store, multi-threaded, nosql, drop-in-replacement, high-throughput, real-time, linux, docker, kubernetes

## Member repositories
- dragonflydb/dragonfly (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:56.560030+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T16:52:19.868097+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/dragonflydb/dragonfly (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:56.560030+00:00, sha fac23966d9be)
  - homepage: https://www.dragonflydb.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:32.140205+00:00, sha d03a2ad3a164)
  - site_page: https://www.dragonflydb.io/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:32.149575+00:00, sha 2b007a60a2a6)
  - site_page: https://www.dragonflydb.io/guides/valkey-key-features-pros-cons-and-comparison-with-redis (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:32.153318+00:00, sha 1b6e93792902)
  - site_page: https://www.dragonflydb.io/about (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:32.155454+00:00, sha 90d71c105027)
  - site_page: https://www.dragonflydb.io/features (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:32.156975+00:00, sha cef97f9a8cbc)
  - site_page: https://www.dragonflydb.io/pricing (fetched 2026-08-29T07:49:32.151610+00:00, sha cd36715eabd5)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.